Tainui coal rights appeal ends

Press, 1 September 1989, Page 6

Tainui coal rights appeal ends

PA • Wellington The Appeal Court case brought by the Tainui people to protect their coal rights pending the Government’s proposed sale of Coalcorp finished yesterday without the Judges hearing submissions on Tainui’s alternative causes of action. The Court president, Sir Robin Cooke, said the Judges would consider arguments on the two causes which have been heard and would then decide whether a further hearing for the alternative submissions was needed. Tainui’s first cause of action was to -have its coal rights declared an interest in land and therefore protected under the Treaty of Waitangi (State Enterprises) Act.

Its second, third and fourth causes of action, which were not heard, were alternative and unnecessary if the first one was successful.

The fifth cause of action, argued in Court yesterday, was an attempt by the tribes to stop the sale of Crown land included in the Raupatu claim until there was adequate protection for that land if the Waitangi Tribunal recommended its return.

The Crown argued that coal rights were not an interest in land but a property interest which was not bound by the act. If the coal rights were declared an interest in land they were subject to a clawback provision, under which the Government would be obliged to return

the coal rights to the tribes if recommended by the tribunal. Coal rights are a big part of the Tainui’s extensive Raupatu claim, which will be heard by the Waitangi Tribunal next year. Mr Peter Salmon, Q.C., for the Tainui people, said 80 per cent of properties declared surplus when the Government transferred State Coal to Coalcorp had been sold by Coalcorp. That, however, was not 80 per cent of the land because many of the properties were farms.

Mr Salmon said the properties were sold under the State-owned Enterprises Act and were therefore subject to the clawback provision. For the Crown, Mr Don Mathieson, Q.C., said because

Coalcorp had never owned the surplus property but was merely acting as an agent in selling it for the Crown, the properties were not bound by the Treaty of Waitangi (State Enterprises) Act and not subject to clawback. The case ended in Maori style, with the Tainui Trust Board chairman, Mr Hare Puke, thanking the Judges for hearing the case and the court for accommodating the customs of the Maori people. On Monday, when the case started, several hundred Tainui gathered in Wellington to support the appeal. Since then about 30, mainly elders, have been listening to the case, either in Court or on closed-circuit television.